Hannah was born on August 4, 1994, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She began skiing at 2 and joined the Mont-Tremblant Ski Club at 12, where she developed a passion for ski racing. Hannah’s talent quickly propelled her to the top ranks in alpine skiing, achieving multiple podiums in FIS-sanctioned events.
Hannah’s World Cup career began in 2018 with a 27th-place finish in her debut race at Blue Mountain, Canada. Despite missing the 2019-2020 season due to a leg injury, she made a strong comeback. Her breakthrough came at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, where she placed 7th in ski cross, confirming her position among the world’s best ski cross skiers.
Since her Olympic performance, Hannah has become a regular on the World Cup podium. In January 2024, she secured back-to-back victories in Nakiska, Canada, marking the high point of her 2023-2024 season. She currently ranks 2nd in the FIS point list, despite an ankle injury that cut short her previous season.
In her own words, Hannah shares what life as a high-performance athlete with T1D looks like for her, and why it was important to her to become a Breakthrough T1D Canada ambassador.
Hannah Schmidt:
I grew up as a very active child. Playing every sport I could! I was diagnosed at the age of 12, very much out of nowhere. I remember going on a road trip across Canada with my parents and having to stop every 30-60 minutes to go pee. Once we got home, I had no energy to do anything, and my parents thought this was very bizarre for me as I loved doing anything active.
When I was diagnosed, I remember my mom just bawling and I turned to her and said, “I will be ok, this is not going to change how I will live my life.”
I still live by this comment and want to portray this as much as possible to people that are living with diabetes. Being diagnosed with diabetes definitely has many challenges but I have learnt how to deal with them the best way possible.
Diabetes isn’t easy, I am not going to sugar coat it. So, when I was diagnosed it was a huge learning curve to be able to adjust everything so that I was able to compete in all the sports that I was doing at the time (basketball, soccer, alpine skiing, sprint canoe/kayak and more). It took time but once you get in the mindset/rhythm of doing things with diabetes it does get a bit easier. I always had the goal to compete in the Olympic Games. I wasn’t sure what sport it was going to be in but I knew I wanted to achieve that goal. I started specializing in the sport of Alpine Skiing at the age of 16 (4 years after I was diagnosed with T1D). I loved the adrenaline of alpine skiing and would always beg my parents to go skiing every weekend.
I competed in alpine skiing until 2018, I completed my university degree at Carleton University the same year. At that time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue skiing and made the decision to try Ski Cross. I loved ski cross the moment I started. I competed at the Nor-Am cup level for my first year, achieving multiple podiums and then progressed into the World Cup the following season.
The year leading up to the Olympics in 2022, I had a breakout season with consistent results and therefore qualified to the Olympics and achieved my goal of competing in the Olympic Games. I placed 7th at the games and really enjoyed every moment of it. There were definitely moments of doubt amongst those years of competing and there still are day to day. Having diabetes has made all of this so much more rewarding in the end.
Managing diabetes while being a high-performance athlete is not easy. I will say that right off the bat. Being able to use the technology that there is now a days makes it a lot easier. I am on the Medtronic pump and the continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that corresponds with Medtronic. Having the CGM while skiing has been amazing!! I have been able to see how the stress/anxiety of racing impacts my blood sugars etc. When I am training or competing, I typically aim to have my blood sugar at 7.0 mmol/l so that I don’t feel like my blood sugar is going to drop while training/competing. This allows me to not have to worry about going too low.
That being said everyone is different and prefers it a certain way. Diabetes definitely adds extra stress when it comes to being a high-performance athlete because of all the travel and the day-to-day ups and downs. That being said I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love what I do! My day-to-day life changes every day; we have travel days, rest days, training days, race days, sick days etc. and that means that my diabetes is not going to look the same each day. I do my best to maintain a good blood sugar average by using my CGM to continuously monitor my levels.
It is really important to me to raise awareness about T1D because diabetes is a manageable disease that you can live with. My goal is to encourage individuals that have diabetes to achieve their goals even if it is going to be harder. The feeling once you reach those goals is even better because you are living with diabetes, and you can still do what you want! I also believe the more we talk about diabetes and the more it is out in the world the closer we can get to finding a cure for it.
Finding a cure for diabetes would be life changing. I honestly don’t remember a day when I didn’t have to think about how much insulin I should take for a certain meal, or did I bring sugar just in case I go low or do I have enough diabetes supplies to last for my two-week training camp. There is always so much going on in my brain when it comes to organization and planning when it comes to living with diabetes. Once there is a cure my day-to-day is going to look a lot easier and simplified! I know the research is very close to finding a cure and I know to would make the lives of everyone living with diabetes so much easier.
I want to help advocate with Breakthrough T1D to show that living with diabetes doesn’t mean that you can’t do sports, or you can’t get a certain job or do a certain task, it just means it might take longer or it will look a bit different, but you can still do it. I really want to get that point across that everybody’s journey is different and mine involves diabetes. Yours can too.
Lastly, I just want to say to everyone living with diabetes, go after your dreams. Fight for what you want to achieve in life and go for it. It’s going to be harder, and you are going to have good days and bad days but when you achieve your goals, you will enjoy it that much more.
A quote I said right when I was diagnosed was “Diabetes isn’t going to change what I want to achieve in my life, it might look a bit different and that’s ok.” This quote has been my go-to when I’m having a tough day or need a quick reminder.
